Top 10 John le Carré novels

The first in le Carré’s Karla trilogy, Tinker Tailor beats to the insidious rhythm of real-life traitor Kim Philby, whom the author still despises to this day. George Smiley takes centre stage in his fifth outing, charged with hunting down a Soviet mole codenamed Gerald. Le Carré had to rewrite Smiley’s timeline to ensure he wasn’t too old for the job. Gary Oldman was good as Smiley in the new film version, but was he better than Alec Guinness?